Typically a garden water controller unit is mountable on an outside tap which is left in “on” position whereas the garden water controller unit controls whether water is actually able to enter the garden watering arrangement via a hose connected to an outlet of the garden watering controller unit.
Some garden watering controller units offer only very simple timer based operation and may, for example, be programmable to water for thirty minutes at the time specified by an internal clock. Other units may be more complex and have a screen based programmable functionality similar to say a central heating control such that various “on” and “off” times may be set and these might be set to occur everyday or only on certain programmed days.
A difficulty with these systems is that they are complex and time consuming to program. Further they do not necessarily lead to watering at optimum times with reference to the differing number of daylight hours as one moves through the year. A user, for example, might prefer to have watering occur at dusk every day, but on a timed based programmable system this would only be possible if the programmed time of watering is altered on a regular basis.
Thus it would be desirable to have a garden watering controller unit which facilitates ease of use whilst also allowing the user to cause watering to occur at desired times and provide a relatively high degree of flexibility for the user in terms of how and when watering should take place.